kiryah

Kiryah is a transliteration that can refer to terms in two Semitic languages, depending on context. In Hebrew, the word kiryah (קריה) means “city” or “urban center.” It appears in toponyms as part of compound place names, most commonly in the form kiryat, as in Kiryat Malakhi or Kiryat Shmona, where the element signals “city of” the following name. In modern usage, the everyday Hebrew term for city is ir (עיר), but kiryah remains a literary or formal designation found in names and historical references.

In Arabic, qaryah (قرية) means “village.” The transliteration kɪryah (among others such as qariya or qaryah) appears in English-language texts and maps as a rendering of this word. It is a widespread toponymic element in the Arab world and in historical or colonial-era records. Variants reflect different dialects and transliteration schemes.

There is no widely recognized international place named simply “Kiryah.” When encountered, the term usually signals either a Hebrew-language toponym or an Arabic toponym whose base meaning is “city” or “village,” or it functions as part of a longer name in either language.

Related terms include Kiryat (קריית), used in Israeli city and neighborhood names, and Qaryah (قرية), used in Arabic toponymy to denote villages.